The electronic equipment of the caterpillar track road paver “SUPER 1800-1”, of the company Joseph Vögele AG, as known from practice and as known from a leaflet distributed during the BAUMA 2004 exhibition, includes an onboard host system unit in the operator's console, as well as several central or peripheral memory programmable controls and controller units, several central or peripheral input/output modules, exterior operator stands, engine electronics, generator electronics and several subsystems with sensors and actuators, which are all directly or indirectly incorporated into a field bus. For the operation of the road paver, different machine parameters are adjusted by means of input data, which, at least to a large extent, is stored in the host system unit, constituting a central data memory. In the case of a breakdown of the host system unit, the adjusted machine parameters will be lost, meaning, that after repairing or replacing the host system unit, a re-parameterization has to be carried out. When single subsystems or the host system unit and the like fail and have to be replaced during a service procedure, conventionally the machine parameter-data are stored in several subsystems within the control system, in a redundant manner, such that, after replacing a component, the machine parameter-data should nonetheless remain in the system. Redundant data-storing requires a costly and high capacity design of the subsystems or components used for this task, and inexpediently requires distributed, high memory capacities. However, the possibility of data being lost by some active components, remains.
Examples of such machine parameters are: Target speeds, speeds for pressing-bars and/or tamper-bars and hydraulic supply quantities, adjustments to the quantity of road building material to be supplied and distributed, target temperatures for heated working components, attack angles of the paving screed, working widths of the paving screed, adjustments to the aggregates used for casting tracks, the quantity of the material which has to be laid on the ground in front of the lateral distribution mechanism and/or in front of the paving screed, the thickness of the cast track, target adjustments for hydraulic pumps and/or hydraulic motors, target adjustments of an automatic screed leveling system, if provided, and the like.
In the road paver known from EP 0 790 353 A, processing units communicate via a common bus system and the host system unit, including a bus driver, with an operator's console, constituting the interface between man and road paver. Target values or data for controlling and for casting tracks, may be input via an interface of the host system unit from the exterior by a floppy disk or by means of data remote transmission. Furthermore, data on machine conditions, as administrated by the host system unit, may be transmitted upon demand via a service interface to a floppy disk or to a paper printer or to a separate computer.
A ground compacting apparatus, the control of which is supported by a GPS-system, is known from an article in the Tiefbau 10/2004 Journal, titled: “Professionelle Bodenverdichtung mit himmlischer Unterstützung”, authors: Janitzki, Boppard. Project data are installed in a conventional computer and are then transmitted by means of a USB-stick to a monitor in the cabin of the compaction apparatus. Data, as recorded and processed during operation, is retransmitted via the USB-stick to the computer for evaluation purposes and processing purposes. Since a conventional USB-stick cannot withstand the coarse working conditions in a compaction apparatus, the USB-stick is only plugged-in upon demand.
A flange housing for a plug, as known from DE 10 138 120 A, is used for handling numerically controlled machines or memory programmable control systems. The plug is part of a USB-interface at which a conventional USB-stick can be plugged-in in order to carry out the data transfer upon demand. The USB-interface is protected against environmental influences.
A connector having a pull-release is known from DE 10 2004 005 266 A. Network connections between industrially used machines are made via cables with the help of the connector, such that accidental pulling of, or increased vibration loads at, the connection cable, cannot release the plug from the plug-in connection. The plug is a conventional network plug or a conventional USB-stick.
A connector body, as known from US 2001/0036762 A, is connected to a connection cable and contains, in a receptacle, an inline connector which is accommodated in the molded body. A coupling nut allows the connection of the connector body to an exterior thread of a plug-in connection. A permanent connection is established from the connector body to the connecting cable.